As the fad that accompanied the pioneering MTV reality-documentary show The Osbournes fades away, daughter Kelly Osbourne has finally decided to embrace her real taste in music.

In an interview with AP Radio, Kelly said that she wanted her second album, currently being recorded, to reflect an "1980s pop" sensibility. In the interview, Kelly admitted that she didn't care for heavy metal, the genre that her father Ozzy helped popularize with Black Sabbath and the 'Ozzfest' concert tours. We presume that means that Kelly also didn't like her first album, which was "heavy metal" and flopped on two labels under two different titles (Shut Up, in its first release on Epic, and Changes, in its expanded re-release on Sanctuary).

In fact, not only does Kelly not care for heavy metal, but she went on to add, "I don't really like rock." So what does this rebellious daughter like? "I like '80s pop. I really want to go in an '80s direction this time." No wonder Kelly scrapped her almost-completed second album.

MTV has announced that The Osbournes will be returning to the network with five all new episodes starting on Tuesday, January 27 at 10:30 PM ET/PT.

The new block of "third season episodes" of the Emmy-award winning show will once again document the real-life drama of that unique rock-n-roll family, the Osbournes.

The episodes will include several all new adventures including Jack's 18th birthday, a trip to the tattoo parlor for some family members, a whole slew of new dogs and cats, massive new construction on the Beverly Hills house, and much more. They will not however include any coverage of Ozzy's serious December ATV accident in which he suffered extensive internal injuries and was placed on a ventilator.

The January 27th premiere kicks off with a weekend premiere marathon of past The Osbournes episodes from January 23-25.

For the new episodes of The Osbournes, Lois Curren is Executive Vice President, Series and Movie Development, and Executive Producer for MTV, R. Greg Johnston is the Executive Producer for MTV, and Rod Aissa is Executive Producer and Vice President, Talent Development, MTV.

MTV Networks owns and operates the cable television programming services MTV: Music Television, MTV2, Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite, TV Land, VH1, CMT: Country Music Television, and Spike TV, as well as The Digital Suite from MTV Networks, a package of thirteen digital services, all of which are trademarks of MTV Networks. MTV Networks also operates and offers joint ventures, licensing agreements and syndication deals whereby its programming can be seen worldwide.

Despite its declining ratings, MTV renewedThe Osbournes for a third season, which began production last month and is scheduled to debut in January 2004. But what would The Osbournes be without Ozzy?

MTV almost found out this week.

On Monday, December 8, according to the Associated Press, former rock star Ozzy Osbourne was driving an all-terrain vehicle around the family's Buckinghamshire estate when he didn't see a hole in the lawn. The ATV flipped, Ozzy fell off, and the ATV landed on top of him, causing extensive internal injuries ... and potentially his death, except for a quick-thinking Osbourne security guard.

According to Reuters, Ozzy's wife Sharon said that Ozzy "stopped breathing for a minute and a half and there was no pulse. But thank God the security guard was there to revive him. He resuscitated [Ozzy] and got him breathing and his pulse going again."

But Ozzy still wasn't out of the woods. He had eight broken ribs, a broken vertebra in his neck and a broken collarbone. In addition, he had blood in his lungs and a damaged blood vessel in his left arm. He was rushed to a nearby hospital for emergency surgery, fitted with a hard collar in an effort to prevent permanent paralysis and then placed on a ventilator.

In the midst of this, Ozzy's doctors issued a statement that he was "stable and comfortable" -- a statement so far removed from the reality facing the unconscious former lead singer of Black Sabbath that it might have fit comfortably in an episode of The Osbournes.

According to the British music publication New Musical Express, Ozzy's doctors began the "several day" process of weaning him off the ventilator on Wednesday, two days after his crash. On Thursday, according to his daughter Kelly, Ozzy finally woke up and gave his family the "thumbs-up" sign. However, since he is still on the ventilator, he was only able to mouth words.

Is there permanent damage? According to Sharon, the doctors won't be able to determine that until Ozzy has finally been removed from the ventilator and is able to talk.

The accident in his homeland seems to have given Ozzy's U.K. public image a major boost. In particular, his duet with Kelly on the old Black Sabbath song "Changes" has taken off on the music charts. According to British bookmakers William Hill, the odds on the song being #1 in the UK over Christmas have dropped from 50-1 to 16-1. (By contrast, the odds of the song even charting in the U.S. remain astronomical.)

The accident came not only in the midst of filming for The Osbournes but also in the middle of a U.K. publicity barrage by the Osbourne family. During the publicity storm, we learned that, according to gossip columnist Jeannette Walls, eldest daughter Aimee, who refused to participate in The Osbournes, blamed MTV for distorting her father's image: "The first time I saw it and the way they edited it to make my dad look like a clown, I wanted to cry. Now he is a laughingstock and known as a stuttering alcoholic. After all his years of hard work and touring, this is how he’s being remembered and appreciated.”

According to the Daily Mirror, younger sister (and laughingstock in her own right) Kelly was so angered by Aimee's attack on the show, the family's main claim to fame, that she spat out the following quote: "She sits and acts like she is so much better than us,. That's what really upsets me about her. Aimee will reap all the benefit and yet won't do any of the work. She will take the money, she will take the free clothes, she will take the free premiere tickets, she will take everything that comes along with what we do. But then she will sit there and slag me off, my brother off, my mum and my dad off to all her friends for days. And it makes me sick. Because if you think that what we do is so disgusting and you think that I'm so horrible and I'm so crap, then don't take the benefits from it."

Typical sibling rivalry among the overpublicized set.

To keep her kids from overshadowing her, Sharon pulled out another one of her juicy "might-be-true" anecdotes about the Osbournes love life, this time writing that she had a "one-night stand" with Ozzy's best friend, the late legendary hard rock guitarist Randy Rhodes: "Ozzy knows the one-time occurrence was loving, not lustful." Frankly, we think that's what all philanderers say.

And even Ozzy was receiving his share of publicity -- Major League Baseball's "This Year In Baseball" Awards named his rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during an August 17 Chicago Cubs game as the "Most Bizarre Moment" in baseball during 2003. A well-earned honor, we believe.

Not being satisfied with that, Ozzy also told the Daily Mirror that he was sexually molested by older boys when he was an 11-year-old in post-war Birmingham and that he was dyslexic and suffered from attention deficit disorder. In Ozzy's words on December 1, "I'm 55 on December 3. How I have survived is a miracle but sooner or later something will go wrong."

On December 8, it almost did. We wish Ozzy good luck on his recovery, because we'd hate to see serious tragedy befall the clown prince of reality TV.

Launch Radio Networks reports that the father/daughter team of Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne from MTV's The Osbournes has recorded a music video for their duet on the old Black Sabbath tune "Changes." The video is part of an effort to relaunch Kelly's debut CD, which was originally called Shut Up! but has been re-issued with five additional tracks as Changes.

Despite the publicity accompanying the re-release, Changes has been a dud so far for Sanctuary Records, selling just 1,000 copies in the three weeks since its September 30 re-issue, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In its original incarnation, Shut Up! sold over 150,000 copies. Apparently the five new songs made little difference to CD buyers.

Kelly and Ozzy are also scheduled to perform "Changes" on family matriarch Sharon Osbourne's syndicated talk show (which is having its own problems) -- but the performance will have to wait until Ozzy's tremors go away.

Speaking of Ozzy's tremors, Ozzy now says (according to MTV) that the tremors are hereditary on his mother's side and that they are definitely not Parkinson's disease or muscular dystrophy, as had been rumored. We admit that we're glad to hear that any maladies that afflict Ozzy from now on will be of his own making.

The Boston Globe reports that Ozzy Osbourne canceled his European tour, which was to start next week, after announcing that he had spent the past three weeks in Boston seeking medical treatment for tremors.

Ozzy, the cartoonish head of the Osbourne family on MTV's The Osbournes, claimed that the tremors had affected him to the point that they were "practically destroying my life along with my self-esteem." We wonder if Ozzy will next seek to blame the tremors for his heavily-criticized performances during this summer's "Ozzfest" (when he even bothered to show up, that is) or his incoherent rendition of the U.S. national anthem at a Chicago Cubs game.

Ozzy consulted with the head of the neurology department at Boston's Tufts Medical Center, came to the city for treatment and then returned to L.A. for a three-to-four-week convalescence. In an effort to maintain his anonymity during his three weeks in "the Hub of the Universe," he was treated at St. Elizabeth's, the most isolated major hospital in Boston. Said a spokesperson for the hospital, "Privacy's a very important thing, whether you're Ozzy Osbourne or an average person like myself."

Our only reaction to that is to wonder: if Ozzy really values privacy, why is he appearing in a weekly reality show about his life? And why is he married to Sharon?

Is America looking to hear more from The Osbournes matriarch Sharon Osbourne? Judging by the first few days of ratings, the answer is no.

Mediaweek.com reports that the overnight ratings for the first four days of The Sharon Osbourne Show have been disappointing. Instead of building on her lead-in audiences, Sharon has been losing them, finishing behind her lead-in programs in both ratings and audience share each day.

Sharon's best day was Monday, her debut, when she managed a 1.7 rating and a 5 share, merely a slight dropoff from the program airing before hers. Since then, however, Sharon's lead-ins have consistently had a rating of 1.7-1.8 and a 5 share, while The Sharon Osbourne Show has drawn a 1.4-1.6 rating and a 4 share. These numbers are closer to the disaster rumored pre-launch than to an acceptable level for a new show that should be attracting a lot of attention.

Will they improve? Critics think not. Ray Richmond of Hollywood Reporter, for one, thinks the show is "awfully close" to "the full-on train wreck that had been predicted" and dismisses Sharon as an "acquired taste." Roger Friedman of Fox News called the show "very bad" and notes that the show has had a lot of difficulty getting guests.

However, the C-list and D-list guests don't seem to bother Sharon, especially if they bring presents. The Boca Raton News reports that Sharon was gushing over a 4.11-karat diamond bone pendant that she received from guest Carmen Electra. The pendant is billed as being made to be worn by either humans or dogs, and so we guess that it would fit comfortably on what is shaping up to be a dog of a talk show.

RealityTVWorld.com today announced the nominees for the second annual Reality TV World "Blowie" Awards, which are presented yearly to outstanding productions, performances and situations in unscripted television programming. Consisting of 22 award categories with a total of 164 nominees, the Reality TV World "Blowie" Awards range from the serious to the frivolous, providing an overview of the reality TV programming in the year gone by.

Although the 2002-03 television season featured a creative mix of unscripted programming, five programs received the lion's share of nominations, and the top three were all broadcast by the CBS Television Network. Leading the way were the stunning 54 nominations recorded by the Emmy-nominated "Survivor," which had three editions included in the eligibilty period for the Blowies. CBS's summer success "Big Brother" received 20 nominations, while critics' favorite and Emmy-nominated "The Amazing Race" picked up 17. ABC's "The Mole," which aired both a celebrity edition and a regular edition during the 2002-03 season, followed just behind with 16 nominations, and Fox's Emmy-nominated sensation "American Idol" closed out the "Big 5" with 12 nominations.

In addition to the awards for outstanding accomplishments, the Reality TV World Blowie Awards also feature categories for worst mistakes and a heavy serving of humor in some of the lesser categories. For example, Flo Pesenti, co-winner of "The Amazing Race 3," achieved the dubious distinction of being nominated in both the Least Favorite Personality and Biggest Drama Queen categories.

The first annual Reality TV World Blowie Awards, which were announced in March 2002, covered reality programming broadcast during the 2001 calendar year. However, with the recent explosion in year-round reality programming, the Blowie Awards Committee (as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences once did with the Oscars) revised the end of the annual eligibility period to conform with the television broadcast season, which traditionally ends at the end of May sweeps each year. As a result, this year's award eligibility period began January 1, 2002 and extended through May 21, 2003 -- the end of the 2002-03 TV season. Thus, the second annual Blowie Awards covers an extended 17 month period instead of the usual year -- a period that began with predictions of doom for reality TV after the Sept. 11 tragedy ... and ended with America riveted to the final showdown between Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken.

In nominations by network, CBS managed to garner more than half of the total: 91 nominations out of a total of 164, aided strongly by the fact that "Survivor" alone received more nominations than any rival network did. Although ABC and Fox were noted for all of the reality shows they introduced during the 2002-03 season, they still only placed second and third, with 29 and 24 nominations respectively. Cable networks MTV, with 6 nominations, and USA Network, with 5, rounded out the top five. NBC recorded a scant 3 nominations, while E!, The WB, and The Learning Channel each received two nominations and ESPN earned one.

Voting for the Reality TV World Blowie Awards will take place on the RealityTVWorld.com website from now through Friday, October 3, 2002 and is open to any member of the public. Voting information is available on the RealityTVWorld.com home page or by visiting the 2003 Blowie Awards webpage. The software used to power the balloting site is designed to prevent multiple voting and will discard any duplicate submissions.

The award winners will be announced by RealityTVWorld.com on Friday, October 10, 2003.

Billboard reports that Kelly Osbourne from MTV's The Osbournes has signed a recording contract with the UK independent Sanctuary Records Group. Kelly, who was dropped by Sony Music earlier this year, will debut on Sanctuary with the re-issue of her Sony CD Shut Up!, augmented by five new songs, including her long-anticipated duet with her father Ozzy on the old Black Sabbath song "Changes" -- which also will become the revised title of the CD.

The other four new songs on Changes will all be live performances: "Come Dig Me Out,” “Disconnected,” “Too Much of You” and “On The Run." However, the focus will be on the remake of "Changes," which is now being billed by Sanctuary as a "jaw dropping makeover" that "takes a surprisingly tender father-daughter turn" into "a modern coming-of-age anthem—replete with soft piano and a choir providing angelic backing vocals."

Although Shut Up! was a flop upon its release by Sony, selling only about 150,000 copies total despite the "buzz" surrounding the Osbournes from their TV show, Kelly says that she is "f---in' thankful" to put the record out again, since it didn't get "a fair chance the first time." However, Sanctuary's "augment and rename" strategy seems designed to maximize purchases of Changes among people who already own Shut Up! and think they're getting new product. We wonder what that says about the quality of the rest of Kelly's almost complete second album, if a reissue of the first album is considered to be the best place to release her duet with Ozzy.

We also wonder about the sappiness of the lyrrics in the "Changes" remake. For example, Ozzy sings “She’s my baby/I love her so/but it’s too late now /I’ve let her go” and Kelly answers “We shared the years/we shared each day/I love you daddy/but I’ve found my way.” Ouch. However, maybe we should be grateful, since Ozzy and Kelly actually speak a total of 33 words without swearing -- which may be a family record.

In addition, we wonder about Kelly's choice of label. Although Kelly says that she signed with an independent like Sanctuary because she was tired of "suck[ing] corporate d---" at a major label, we note that Sanctuary, unlike the major labels, doesn't pay large signing bonuses or delivery advances for new records. Since the Osbournes have never been inclined to leave any money on the table, we can only assume that no major label was interested in Kelly.

Finally, we wonder if reissuing Kelly's existing album is consistent with the search for "fresh ideas" that her mother Sharon was touting at the time Kelly left Sony. Perhaps we need to make another entry in Sharon's list of "fudging" the truth.

According to Sharon's interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, to be aired on the network's 20/20, she demanded that Ozzy stop his own alcohol and drug abuse while Jack was waiting to check in to the clinic, but he refused. She then left for a few days and only returned when Ozzy proved he was serious about stopping his drinking and drugging (or, at least, proved he was as serious as Ozzy is capable of being in his current condition).

Why tell this story now? Well, Sharon's new daytime TV talk show is scheduled to debut this week, and rumors have been flying that the show may be a disaster. However, it's difficult to believe that the most-public and most-publicized family in America had a "real" split that no one heard about.

Britain's Channel 4 has announced that "The Osbournes" Jack Osbourne will give Britians a "Brit's eye view" of Los Angeles in a new television series for the British television network.

According to the Associated Press, the 17-year-old co-star of MTV's "The Obournes" will host "Union Jack," which is scheduled to air in November. The program will follow Osbourne to parties, premieres and celebrity haunts and feature his opinions on the latest movies and music.

According to Channel 4, the show will "give a fresh take on all things cool and strange in Hollywood." Channel

Anyone else think that attending even more Hollywood "parties, premieres and celebrity haunts..." might not be the best thing for Jack as he continues to recover from his admitted alcohol and drug abuse problems?

Ananova reports that Kelly Osbourne had to cancel several U.K. concerts after getting food poisoning during dinner with Elton John.

Kelly, her mother Sharon and her brother Jack, the stars of the the MTV series The Osbournes along with her father Ozzy, were guests of Elton's at his villa in southern France when Kelly became violently ill with nausea and diarrhea after eating apparently-spoiled shellfish. Although she recovered, she said that her mother "made [her] cancel [her] solo gigs" and return home. We wonder if Sharon would have been so adamant if tickets to Kelly's U.K. shows were selling better.

Kelly insists that she is "not giving up singing" despite the cancellations, even though she has been unable to find a new label since being dropped by Sony Music. She notes that she and her dad Ozzy have recorded a duet of the old Black Sabbath song "Changes" for his new album.

Not all of this story is bad news for Kelly, though. According to the Denver Post, Elton made amends to Kelly in a very expensive way. Says Kelly, "Elton's given me a massive pink diamond ring with two white diamonds on either side." We presume that Elton gave her the diamond to illustrate that, although many TV viewers might want to deliberately poison the Osbourne family, he wasn't among them yet.

As this story indicates, Kelly is at risk of becoming better known for what she has NOT done rather than what she has done. She did not appear at these concerts in England. She also did not appear at a prior performance for NME because of her supposed concern about her safety. She does not have a recording contract. She did not appear in the movie Freaky Friday as star Lindsay Lohan's best friend and bandmate, and the movie became a huge hit with Christina Vidal in her place. In fact, the 17-year-old Ms. Lohan, who has been a professional model and actress since age 3, was given her own recording contract as a result of the film -- putting her ahead of Ms. Osbourne in both acting and singing.

Along with her new diamond, Kelly has plenty of new detractors, such as controversial Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten (aka John Lydon), who was quoted by the Long Island Press describing Kelly this way: "Poor girl! Her big rebel statement is ‘I'm a punk!’ Well, sorry missus, but you're not. You're fat, that's all. You're a fatty. She's a tub o' lard.”

Such is life in Hollywood, a place where, as Billy Crystal used to say, "it is better to look good than to feel good." It sounds like Kelly Osbourne has had trouble with both.

Perhaps we've been focusing too much on the bad publicity about the Osbournes. Yesterday, papa Ozzy and mama Sharon, stars of MTV's The Osbournes, appeared at the Chicago Cubs-Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game in Chicago's Wrigley Field and drew little but crowd and media adulation, typified by this column in the Chicago Daily Herald.

According to the Associated Press, the Cubs' fans cheered and chanted for Ozzy and Sharon during their appearances ... even though Sharon, who threw out the first pitch, only managed to toss the baseball a little more than halfway to home plate (60 feet, 6 inches), and a seemingly dazed Ozzy had no idea whatsoever of the words to "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," which he stumbled his way through (singing nonsense syllables) during the seventh-inning stretch. In replaying the scene during a nightly highlights show, ESPN reporters jokingly questioned Ozzy's sobriety at the time.

So what would account for the cheers and praise for Ozzy? Perhaps it resulted from Ozzy's donning of a Cubs jersey (seen in this picture from the Evening Times), since Cubs fans have grown used to seeing their team play a level of ball of similar quality to Ozzy's singing in the years since the Cubs' last championship ... in 1908. Or perhaps it's because Ozzy is a rarity in Hollywood, a celebrity unafraid to fail over and over again. Or perhaps ... dare we say it? ... he's become an icon due to MTV and reality TV.

Addendum: The Chicago Tribune (free registration required) has added links for the video (in RealVideo format) and transcript for Ozzy and Sharon's rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." In addition, a poll on the page asks respondents to vote for the worst rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in Cubs history; out of almost 5,000 responses, over 63% have selected Ozzy's version, which the Tribune says was done "so badly you wonder if it was on purpose." We wonder too.

Sharon Osbourne, matriarch of MTV's The Osbournes, once again is wallowing in negative publicity. This time, it relates to her long-awaited TV talk show, which is finally getting ready to start production. Launch Radio Networks reports that the show has had something other than a smooth start.

First, the show's producers couldn't decide on a direction for the show; then Sharon blew off some run-throughs, saying that she was indisposed while visiting her native U.K. In addition, the high stress levels associated with the show so far may have contributed to the hospitalization of two staffers, one for a seizure and one for an asthma attack. Although none of these crises are likely to affect the show's September 15 debut, they indicate a substantial amount of turmoil, which may be hazardous to the show's long-term health in the highly-competitive TV talk world.

For her part, Sharon insists that nothing is wrong, either with her show or with the ongoing 'Ozzfest' tour, which she says means that her husband Ozzy's "musical career is as big as it ever has been." We tend to doubt, however, that Ozzy's musical career has had as many issues with his no-shows, his poor performances, and the death of a close associate as it did this year. Oh, and he's without a label, after Sharon apparently linked his future to his daughter Kelly's.

But, despite all that as well as many other issues (discussed in this story), MTV renewed the family's TV show for a third (or is it fourth?) season ... so Sharon can continue to enjoy her fantasies for the time being.

Thomson, 50, a native Scot who had worked for Ozzy since 1980 and, like the Osbournes, emigrated from the U.K. to California with his family, had been suffering from throat cancer for the last 18 months, according to an Ozzfest publicist. Nevertheless, his death appeared to be unexpected, and Ozzfest staffers were said to be "visibly shaken." An autopsy will be conducted today, but Ozzfest continues to slog on despite it all.

Ozzy claimed to be suffering from laryngitis, which was also the reason he gave for missing several previous shows. Said one concert-goer, who had paid a ticket-broker $400 to get a pair of tickets by the stage, "I'm mad at him right now. Four days to get over laryngitis?"

However, the concerts went on without Ozzy and the concert frontman on stage chastised people who booed Ozzy's no-show -- treating Ozzy'd illness as more serious than mere laryngitis. "Don't you ... boo! [Ozzy]'s the godfather of metal and he's fallen ill. Keep Ozzy in your prayers tonight. Let's hope he gets well soon."

While we think it's more than a little strange to request prayers to aid in recovering from laryngitis, we note that Ozzy has other ailments that affect his concert performance. According to Salon, Ozzy is incontinent -- and the reason that buckets of water are dumped on him on stage is so that the audience can't see the consequences of his bladder-control problems. We think prayer would be insufficient to get us to perform live if we suffered from this problem.

E! Online reports that, despite all the problems, the Osbournes have signed a contract with MTV for a fourth season of their reality-TV series, The Osbournes. 20 new episodes of the show will be produced and aired in 2004. Said MTV's president, "If you thought we wouldn't resign the Osbournes, you're crazy."

Despite the show's plummiting ratings, The Osbournes is still MTV's second-highest rated series, behind only The Real World. From the Osbournes' viewpoint, the MTV money will halp them pay their legal bills (plus whatever damages they owe in the lawsuits).

To help save their show, the Osbournes are working all-out to attract publicity, whether good, bad or goofy. For example, in an MTV news special about Jack's rehab, onetime hard-core stoner Ozzy calls for the banning of coffee, because coffee leads to drug abuse! Said Ozzy, "They should ban the lot. One thing leads to another. Coffee leads to Red Bull, Red Bull leads to crank."

That Ozzy, such a deep thinker. We can't express how grateful we are to MTV for allowing us to follow his musing, Sharon's ranting and lying, Kelly's screeching and Jack's pill-popping for another year.

In the world of MTV's The Osbournes, the only bad publicity is no publicity. The Associated Press reports that, in the current issue of US Magazine, Osbournes matriarch Sharon Osbourne takes full responsibility for the alcohol and drug abuse problems experienced by her son Jack, who has also been featured on the show. In particular, she notes her failure to recognize what was going on with Jack, even though she was, in her own mind, a "cutting-edge mom."

The Hollywood Reporter reports that MTV's hit "The Osbournes" plummeted in its third-season premiere, drawing just more than half the audience that tuned in to last season's debut episode.

The third season premiere drew a 3.3 rating in its target age group of viewers 12-34, down from a 6.2 in the same demographic for the previous season's bow. The 10:30PM episode drew a 3.2 household rating and 3.4 million total viewers, down from a 5.2 rating and 6.6 million viewers for the second-season debut.

Despite the steep drop, the ratings were still respectable by cable programming standards. Last season, "The Osbournes" averaged a 4.5 rating in 12-34.

Is there ever going to be a story about the Osbournes that isn't beset by charges of spin? We're beginning to doubt it.

The Osbourne family and Sony Music have parted company. According to Reuters, both heavy-metal icon Ozzy Osbourne and his daughter Kelly Osbourne have left Sony, which has been Ozzy's home for 23 years (since his smash Blizzard of Ozz album) and Kelly's for one album. Family matriarch Sharon Osbourne states that Ozzy and Kelly left the label in January, after longtime Sony head (and Mariah Carey's ex-hubby) Tommy Mottola resigned. Sharon said that her husband and daughter were looking for "fresh ideas."

But ... is Sharon being honest? People have questioned the truth of her statements before. And, as we look a little deeper, we see that this one also seems dubious. For starters, Sharon didn't always say that Kelly had already left Sony. In this BBC report, she stated that she was "negotiating" for Kelly to leave Sony. Hmmm. According to Sharon, she has to negotiate Kelly's release even though Ozzy left? Does that make any sense, considering that Kelly's debut album, demurely entitled Shut Up, sold fewer than 150,000 copies in the U.S.?

Perhaps the real story lies with Kelly. Heavy metal music websites Undercover Music News (from Australia) , Rock Rage and Metal Hammer report that Kelly was actually dropped by Sony due to her poor sales, even though her follow-up CD was almost complete. According to MTV, a story about Kelly's termination by Sony will appear in the upcoming issue of US Weekly. Perhaps that's why Sharon decided to spin her tale for US's main rival, People.

We have no idea who is telling the truth here, but we hope that, at whatever label the Osbournes join, one of the "fresh ideas" is honesty.

What price fame? The unexpected success of MTV's The Osbournes reality series made rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his family into instant celebrities, but not without cost. The latest incident to hit the dysfunctional clan, as reported by Britain's Sky News (part of the Fox group), is the admission of the Osbournes' 17-year-old son Jack to a rehab clinic.

The Las Encinas clinic in California treats both alcohol and drug abuse, although its staff has refused to confirm which one Jack is being treated for. Father Ozzy suffered from both, and the article is accompanied by a photo of the underage Jack with what appears to be a glass of wine in his hand.

What's more important: a court of law or the court of public opinion? Sharon Osbourne of MTV's The Osbournes may get the chance to find out.

As we reported earlier this week, Sharon and Hollywood agent Renee Tab got into a brawl last Thursday at an LA restaurant. The battle apparently was linked to Sharon's bizarre theft charge against Tab. (By the way, Tab says she was a guest of one of Sharon's son Jack's friends.) Each of them filed a battery complaint against the other, but the police don't seem inclined to pursue either one.

Sharon decided to take her campaign for "justice" to tabloid TV. Ananova.com reported that Sharon went on the show Celebrity Justice on Tuesday, April 15, to show off her bruises and allege that she was the victim. She whined that she was afraid her 50-year-old jaw had been broken by the 26-year-old Tab, and she said that she had "nothing to hide."

A related story from MTV, the network which owns The Osbournes, said that Celebrity Justice had found two witnesses who said that Tab hit Sharon first. (We don't know whether their first names were Ozzy and Jack.) In the court of public opinion, Sharon's case was made.

However, in any court, the other side gets a chance too. The Associated Press and MTV now both report that Tab's lawyer issued a statement from Tab seeking her own "celebrity justice." According to the reports, Tab claims that Sharon's claims are "baffling" and raises the issue about who would have the most to gain by the publicity: a private citizen (Tab) or a woman about to launch the third season of a fading reality TV show?

Tab's statement also claims that Sharon Osbourne called Tab, who was born in Iran, a "Persian carpet cleaner" and threatened to "send someone to slash [her] face and break [her] leg," Tab's lawyer claims that she will seek a restraining order against Sharon. Oh, and Tab's lawyer also showed her willingness to move the case into a new court, saying that Sharon will have a chance to explain her comments in a court of law. Since the criminal cases don't seem to be going anywhere, that probably indicates that Tab is looking at filing a civil suit, perhaps for defamation of character, against the foul-mouthed Osbourne matriarch.

Stay tuned -- the circus is back in town. We haven't heard the last of this fight by any means.

Ananova.com reports that Sharon appeared on the April 15 edition of Celebrity Justice to tell her side of the story. Sharon, who still has a bruised chin, claimed that she thought her jaw was broken and that her teeth have to be "redone."

During the interview, Sharon said that she had "nothing to hide." We admire this philosophy, although we might suggest to Sharon that suppressing anger in public is probably a better strategy than engaging in brawls.

Forgive and forget? Not where Sharon Osbourne of MTV's The Osbournes is concerned.

We previously reported that Sharon tried to have an agent with the ICM firm, one of Hollywood's most powerful, charged with theft after the woman, Renee Tab, won a $15,000 diamond necklace in a raffle at the Osbourne's New Year's Eve party that was filmed for their TV show. Sharon's bizarre claim was that Ms. Tab had no right to the necklace because she wasn't an invited guest to the party.

Now, the Associated Press reports that Sharon was engaged in a brawl with Tab last Thursday at Koi Japanese Restaurant in LA. According to police reports, Sharon, Ozzy and son Jack were eating at the restaurant when they encounted Tab.

In Tab's story, Sharon waited outside the restaurant for her to leave, at which time Sharon spit on her and started the brawl. Sharon, for her part, claims that Tab "viciously assaulted" her -- which is not inconsistent with Tab's story. Police say they took a report from each party but declined to say whether any charges -- "on the low end of the misdemeanor scale" -- will be filed.

Too bad. A "Women in Chains" angle featuring Sharon might have been just the gimmick that The Osbournes TV show could have used to return to the top of the ratings.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, MTV has decided to renew The Osbournes for a third season, which will premiere June 10, 2003 at 10:30 PM.

MTV is also making several other shifts to its reality programming, intended to distance it from other networks by focusing on what MTV calls "dramatic storytelling." Making the Band 2 has been picked up, and several other reality projects such as Surf Girls, Duets and the streetball-focused Who's Got Game? will be debuting in the next 12 months.

We wish MTV good luck in revitalizing the Osbournes "franchise." Frankly, we're not sure what Ozzie and his family haven't already done on TV that could be shown in a third season ... except act intelligently, and that appears to be beyond their capabilities.

The Associated Press reports that Ozzy Osbourne says his wife Sharon is now cancer-free after months of treatment.
Sharon announced last year, as reported here, that she was suffering from colon cancer which had spread to her lymph nodes and that she was beginning chemotherapy to combat it. The medical tests and chemo were captured during the second season of The Osbournes reality TV show on MTV.

The AP reports that Ozzy also said that he was unprepared to deal with both the cancer and his show's cult-hit status: "With Sharon's cancer and the success of the TV show, I lost it last year, I just freaked out. I think I had something like a nervous breakdown — my nervous system just imploded. This is all too much for me sometimes."

Uh, we don't know who really said this, but we doubt it was Ozzy. Why? Because it's more than 40 words long without ever once using a swear word (the f-word alone should have appeared about 5 times), and it's reasonably coherent.

The New York Post reports that 19-year-old Kelly Osbourne has reportedly bought a multi-million dollar house in her parents' posh neighborhood and plans to move in next month once filming of the third and final season "The Osbournes" concludes.

Sources close to the deal say that Osbourne has yet to sign the final papers on the house, but Kelly told Heat magazine that Sharon has been emotional since she told her she was leaving the nest. "She's been a blithering idiot ever since I got the new place," Kelly said. "I bought it a couple of weeks ago and it's mine in ten days."

Kelly's move signals the end of era for the Osbourne family. The third season is slated to debut this June.

RealityTVWorld.com today announced the opening of the nomination period for the 2003 Blowie Awards. Now in their second year, the Blowie Awards are annually awarded to outstanding performances and situations in reality television programming. The twenty two Blowie Award categories range from serious to frivolous; in addition to awards for outstanding accomplishments, there are also awards for worst mistakes and a heavy serving of humor in some of the lesser categories.

The open nomination period will continue until March 24, 2003 at midnight ET. Any registered RealityTVWorld message board user may make a nomination. Following the open nomination period, the Blowie Awards Committee will determine which nominees will appear on each award's public ballot. Between 3-5 nominees will be selected for each category. Once the ballot is finalized, the 2003 RealityTVWorld Blowie Awards will be opened for voting by all website visitors. Voting will remain open for a pre-determined time period, then the ballots will be closed, the results tabulated, and the winners announced. Each user will only be allowed one vote. To nominate for an award, please visit our 2003 RealityTVWorld Blowie Awards Nomination Forum

During last year's 2002 Blowie Awards, CBS led all networks with 69 nominations out of a total of 115. Fox placed a distant second with 29, followed by USA with 6. NBC and ABC managed only 4 nominations each, and three of the five nominees for the "Worst Overall Show" aired aired on those networks. UPN, VH1 and MTV each managed to record one nomination.

The Associated Press reports that Kelly Osbourne canceled a performance Thursday at the NME ("New Musical Express") Awards due to her fears about traveling to the U.K.

According to her publicist, Kelly decided not to travel to the U.K. after seeing images of soldiers patrolling London's Heathrow Airport. Kelly's parents, Ozzie and Sharon, were in New York on September 11, 2001, when Arab terrorists attacked the city, and Kelly didn't want to repeat heir experience.

The NY Daily News reports that, despite the heavy dose of continuing publicity that the Osbourne family has continued to draw to itself, ratings for the family's reality TV show on MTV have declined dramatically this year. Ratings for the most recent episode were the lowest of the season, attracting only about half the audience of the show's second-season premiere ... and they were even further below the audience numbers at the end of the show's first season in April. "The Osbournes" even finished behind MTV's long-running "The Real World" reality series.

At the same time, the Osbournes' hosting role on the American Music Awards produced a ratings disaster, as the viewing audience for the AMA bash dropped by about 20% from the prior year., according to People Magazine, which said that this was the lowest rating ever for the AMA celebration. In the words of a Syracuse professor quoted in the article, "Once you take away the initial shock of the craziness of what you're seeing, there's not a lot left."

Even the "initial shock" proved too much for Patricia Heaton, co-star of "Everybody Loves Raymond," when she encountered the Osbournes at the American Music Awards. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer (where Heaton's brother is a columnist), Heaton, who was supposed to be a presenter on the show, stormed out of the auditorium after becoming offended by the "stupid and vulgar" humor of the show. She called the show "an affront to anyone with a shred of dignity, self-respect and intelligence."

Yep, sounds like the Osbournes to us.

If the level of posting on the TheOsbournesSucks.com message boards is any indication, the Osbournes are well on their way to being the latest addition to the Hollywood trash heap.

According to the Associated Press, the weird world of the Osbourne family just keeps getting more bizarre. In the latest development, Sharon Osbourne has filed a police report alleging that a Hollywood talent agent, who won a $15,000 necklace in a raffle during the New Years' Eve party thrown by the Osbournes (that was filmed for airing as part of their MTV series), committed theft by winning and taking the necklace.

According to the complaint, the winner of the necklace, agent Renee Tab of the powerful ICM agency, was not an invited guest to the party. Therefore, the Osbournes allege that she had no right to be in the raffle or win the necklace, so she committed theft by taking it. A Beverly Hills police lieutenant confirmed the filing of the report.

A spokesperson for Sharon Osbourne claimed that she was disappointed that the necklace had not been returned. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for ICM requested an apology from the Osbournes to both ICM and Ms. Tab.

It appears that the Osbournes are determined to test the truth of the old adage that the only bad publicity is no publicity...

Reuters reports that Tuesday's second season opener of MTV's hit reality series, which featured legendary rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon at a White House dinner, drew an average of 6.6 million viewers, making it the most-watched cable TV program of the night, the network said on Wednesday. The episode, which also featured daughter Kelly singing the Madonna classic "Papa Don't Preach" at the June MTV Movie Awards, was hotly anticipated in part because the first season of the series had brought the family cult celebrity status.

MTV, which was quick to do a two-year, 20-episode deal with the family after the series took off, said Tuesday night's show was the highest-rated and most-watched program of the fourth quarter on basic, advertising-supported cable. Although year-over-year comparisons are difficult since the hype around the show grew as its first season ran, the network said the second-season premiere was up 84 percent among audiences ages 12 to 34 compared to the series premiere.

At its peak in May, the show was drawing close to 8 million viewers, on average, making it the highest-rated program on cable and a smash hit for the music and entertainment network.

RealityTVWorld.com has announced that MTV's "The Osbournes" reality TV program now has its own RealityTVWorld.com website -- TheOsbournesSucks.com. In the tradition of previous RealityTVWorld.com websites, TheOsbournesSucks.com will features program news, information, and episode summaries for the MTV reality series.

MTV reports that recognizing that when metal matriarch Sharon Osbourne talks, people listen, a television production company is giving her a talk show.

Osbourne has signed a deal with Telepictures Productions, a division of Warner Bros. Television, to host a syndicated talk show scheduled to premiere next fall, according to a source close to the project. The show's focus will center on a single issue, similar to "The Oprah Winfrey Show," rather than a variety format akin to the defunct "Rosie" or so many late-night programs.

The Los Angeles Times, quoting "industry sources," reported the wife/manager of Ozzy Osbourne will receive between $3 million and $5 million for her efforts.

Zap2It.com reports that Sharon Osbourne may have spoken a little prematurely when she told Barbara Walters that "The Osbournes" would leave MTV after the coming season.

"I was totally unaware of [Osbourne's statement]," MTV president Van Toffler tells The New York Times. The family has a contract to do at least 20 more episodes of "The Osbournes," which follows Sharon, her rock-star husband Ozzy and kids Jack and Kelly as they go about their profanity-filled everyday lives.

Sharon Osbourne issued a statement late Monday, after the ABC transcript was released, saying she remains committed to the show. "I have every intention of fulfilling our commitment to MTV for a full 20 episodes," she says. "I love my MTV."

Reuters reports that Sharon Osbourne, matriarch of MTV's first family, "The Osbournes," says the constant presence of cameras in their home is getting to her and she wants to call it quits at the end of the upcoming season. In an interview for a special edition of the ABC News program "20/20," to air on Wednesday, the wife and manager of British rocker Ozzy Osbourne also said she regrets putting her family on television in the first place.

"This is definitely the last year," Sharon Osbourne, 50, told Barbara Walters in excerpts of the interview released by Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network. "We can't do it anymore. ... Another 10 shows and I'm out." She said the strain of living in a fish bowl has become especially hard as her family copes with her battle against colon cancer, a crisis she said is driving her husband to drink.

"Ozzy's been hitting the bottle again," she said. "And, we agreed to do the show, and so the cameras are here all the time. ... we have no privacy. You know when you're sick, you want to be on your own? And I can't throw up on my own, and Ozzy can't get drunk on his own."

An MTV spokeswoman said there was no immediate comment from the Viacom Inc.-owned cable music network.

Reuters reports that MTV has announced that the second seasion of "The Osbournes" will premiere on November 26th, kicking off a second season of MTV's highest-rated show. "We are excited to invite the world into our home for another dose of Osbourne insanity," Sharon Osbourne said in a statement issued by MTV. "This season the show takes on a whole new meaning as we share the highs and lows of the last six months with our viewers. With the Osbournes, you never know what you're gonna get."

This season, the show will feature a new member of the clan, 18-year-old Robert Marcato, a family friend whose mother recently died of cancer and has moved in with the Osbournes. They are in the process of legally adopting him.

Melinda the nanny also will return, along with an ever-expanding collection of dogs and cats and various other characters who drift in and out of the Osbourne household. The show also will incorporate scenes from Ozzy's touring schedule over the summer, a trip to Washington last May to dine with the president, and Kelly's bid to launch a recording career as a singer.

The Associated Press reports that MTV announced Tuesday that the second season of the hit "The Osbournes" reality TV series will premiere in November. Details on the upcoming shows were not released and the debut date was not specified.

The season is expected to feature Sharon Osbourne's battle against cancer as she undergoes chemotherapy sessions. She was diagnosed with colorectal cancer July 1, after her husband urged her to see a doctor for a long overdue checkup. Two days later, she had surgery and then one of two lymph nodes that were removed tested positive for cancerous cells, indicating the disease had spread.

As most regular message board visitors no doubt already know, the RealityTVWorld.com message boards are currently unavailable.

At approximiately 3PM ET Tuesday afternoon, the server that we utilize to host the message boards began experiencing severe technical problems and crashed. We're currently working with our hosting partner to restore the server to normal operation as soon as possible and apologize for any inconvenience this unexpected outage has caused. We'll post additional information as it becomes available.

In the meantime we'd like to confirm for everyone that other areas of the RealityTVWorld.com network remain functional, including our LIVE CHAT rooms, our SPOILER ISLAND Survivor fantasy game, and our RealityTVWorld.com reality TV show news service. Thank you for your patience.

LATE THURSDAY MORNING UPDATE: We are still working to restore the server to full operational order. At this time we hope to have the system functional sometime late this afternoon. Once again we apologize for any inconvenience this unexpected outage has caused and thank you for your patience.

RealityTVWorld.com has announced that ABC's "Push, Nevada" - the self-described "next-generation twist on reality television" now has its own RealityTVWorld.com website -- Push-Nevada.net. In the long tradition of previous RealityTVWorld.com websites, Push-Nevada.net will features program news, information, episode summaries, and (perhaps most importantly) attempt to solve the Push mystery.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Kelly Osbourne (of MTV's 'The Osbournes') won't be making her feature film debut in Disney's remake of "Freaky Friday" after all. According to The Report's sources, Osbourne has dropped out of the project because of "personal reasons."

Osbourne was set to star opposite Annette Bening and Lindsay Lohan in the film, playing Lohan's musically inclined best friend in the remake of the 1976 comedy.

Reuters reports that a new addition to British rocker Ozzy Osbourne's family may give America even more to love about "The Osbournes." Sharon Osbourne, the heavy metal rocker's wife, plans to take in a boy who recently lost his mother to colon cancer, her publicist confirmed on Wednesday.

The New York Post reported earlier that the Osbournes would take Robert Marcato, a close friend of the couple's daughters, under their wing and into their show after his mother died last week. Once Marcato settles into the family, he will become part of the show as "Baby Osbourne" even though he is 18, the newspaper reported.

Nearly two weeks after a film producer sued Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, claiming they stole his idea for a TV show about them, a Web-based entertainment company has brought a similar court action against the couple.

The latest lawsuit, filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court, says the Osbournes' deal with MTV breaches an intellectual property rights agreement the couple signed in December 2000 with Threshold.TV Inc., formerly Threshold.com. The suit says that under its contract Threshold acquired exclusive rights to Ozzy Osbournes's "name, likeness, image, identity, persona, trademarks and right of publicity" for online works and non-Internet programming.

The agreement, signed for a term of three years and 90 days, expressly covered "live-action and animated programs ... or other off-line works, as well as the right to make sequels, remakes, spin-offs and derivative works," the suit said.

The suit seeks unspecified damages and a court declaration that Threshold is owner of MTV's "The Osbournes" series. Threshold claims it originated the concept for such a show but that Sharon Osbourne rejected the idea of TV cameras in their house.

"Following that conversation, the Osbourne interests negotiated with MTV exactly the TV show" that Threshold had first suggested, the suit said. MTV and its parent company, Viacom Inc., which the plaintiff claims were aware of Threshold's exclusive deal, also are named as defendants.

Zap2it.com has reported that Jack Osbourne will also make an appearance in the season premiere of The WB's 'Dawson's Creek' series. Few details are known, but a network spokeswoman says he'll likely play himself.

The two-hour season premiere will air Wednesday, October 2nd at 8PM EST.

Reuters reports that Kelly Osbourne is in negotiations to play the musically inclined best friend to the teen heroine in Walt Disney Pictures' quirky comedic remake of the 1976 picture.

The original featured Jodie Foster as a tomboyish teen who constantly quarrels with her mother (Barbara Harris). When mother and daughter reveal desires to escape their drudgery of their current lives, they suddenly and inexplicably exchange bodies.

Osbourne is also expected to contribute at least one song to the picture's soundtrack.

The Los Angeles Times reports that The Osbournes have landed another big payday -- this time from Miramax Films for the worldwide DVD/videocassette release of the show.

Rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his wife and manager Sharon Osbourne on Friday closed a DVD/video agreement worth roughly $7 million with Miramax. The new deal covers the first and second seasons of the show. Miramax, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co., will market both censored and uncensored versions of both seasons produced by MTV.

At the time of the original first-season deal, no DVD/videocassette or syndication rights had been negotiated since no one had any idea the show would become such a phenomenon. With multimillion-dollar agreements for new episodes of the show, a lucrative book deal and now a rich DVD deal, the Osbournes have parlayed their profanity-laced lives into a cottage industry worth an estimated $30 million.

The Associated Press reports that a producer has sued Ozzy Osbourne and the rock musician's wife, claiming the couple stole the idea for their hit MTV reality series "The Osbournes" from him.

Plaintiff Gary Binkow said he met on several occasions with the couple and executives from Miramax TV between 1999 and 2000 to discuss "a real-life docu-sitcom" about their family, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court. The court papers include what Binkow said was a copy of his original treatment of the proposed series from January 2000, registered with the Writers Guild of America, The Hollywood Reporter reported Friday.

Lisa Vega, a spokeswoman for the family, said previously published reports have made it clear that Binkow was not the show's creator. MTV was not named in the lawsuit.

Zap2It.com reports that Ozzy Osbourne's son 16-year old son, Jack, was injured Wednesday when he and several friends were attempting cannonballs off the Malibu Pier in Southern California.

The young star of MTV's "The Osbournes" suffered an arm injury, and was taken to Malibu St. John's Urgent Care center for treatment. Norton Wisdom, a Los Angeles County lifeguard, tells the AP, "I looked up and there were a bunch of kids doing cannonballs off the Malibu Pier, which is illegal."

Osbourne was on the pier with a film crew at the time. After his injury, area lifeguards stabilized his arm and treated him for mild shock. The film crew did not have a permit to be on the pier and left the area, Wisdom said.

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